About the composer:
Hildegard of Bingen (c.1098 - 1179) was a Benedictine abbess, mystic, composer and polymath of the Middle Ages, renowned for her visionary theological writings, including Scivias [from the Latin phrase Sci vias Domini - Know the ways of the Lord], which documented her divine revelations. A trailblazer in multiple fields, she composed sacred music, authored texts on natural medicine and science, and wrote Ordo Virtutum [Order of the Virtues], one of the earliest surviving morality plays. As a spiritual leader, she founded two monasteries, and advised popes, emperors and clergy, defying medieveal gender norms through her intellectual and ecclesiastical authority. As well as the music that she composed for Ordo Virtutum, she composed many chants that were collected in a volume entitled Symphonia armoniae celestium revelationum [Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations]. Most of these chants were written in Ecclesatical Latin, but some are also in a languge that Hildegard invented, supposedly so that the nuns in her monasteries could speak without any men understanding.
Artistic Director's Notes (and co-composer):
I was fortunate enough to be studying a music college when the first critical edition of the Symphonia was published. I purchased the book and have been in love (and in awe of her as a person) with her music ever since. When the idea of this concert was raised a number of months ago, I knew one of the pieces would be an arrangement of mine of one of Hildegard's pieces. All her music is written for what we call monophony - which means for one voice. All her chants are tunes - there is no harmony, no other voices, just a single line for all to sing. The music is also written originally in what we called mensural notation, using neumes. There is no specific tempo, and the rhythms are all relative rather than strict (i.e. a short note, a longer note, and an even longer note, with no exact relation between these levels of temporality). To compose this piece, I translated the medieval notation into more modern notation, and then created different textures and harmonies that support, and even sometimes intefere, with the original melody, which is almost unchanged from what Hildegard wrote. I am hoping that you hear a mixture of the divine 11th Century with a mix of more contemporary sounds and thoughts. The chant is taken from one of the antiphons (A piece that is to be performed during worship by two choirs before a psalm reading) in the Symphonia. The full text of the original part of this antiphon is Quia pomiferum hortum et flores florum in turba virginum ad se collegit, which translates as "As she has gathered the fruit-laden garden and the choicest of blossoms among the young women to her".
The piece is humbly dedicated to all the women in the orchestra, and all the strong women in my life, and especially is dedicated to my friend Juli Vaughn, who closes the work.
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